Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Luna's Windows

The spacecraft Luna went through a number of design changes before consensus was reached. One of the longest and most brutal was over windows. Did she need windows?

Since the earliest days of space flight windows were valued for psychological reasons. People like to see what is outside using the Mark One Eyeball. You can have as many enhanced, colorized, optimized views on screens as you want. They still want to see what is around them.

Luna has excellent viewing systems, starting with the collection of lenses in the bow. Lateral sensors give a perfect image of surroundings. Even the stern ram has viewing apparatus. The windows on Luna still made the command crew feel better. The pilot and navigation advisors were mostly adamant about including windows.

It was argued that Metasite could be made transparent and was still strong as steel. many ships had transparent portals or sections of their hulls. But the Luna was a war ship. What about a weapon hitting a window?

It was argued that a weapon hit anywhere with modern technology being what it was would be. Very. Bad. Metasite being what it was there was sufficient protection from micro-meteorites and debris in orbit.

The compromise was something neither side really liked. The command crew got their windows. The armor guys got their protection. Each porthole would have a small viewing alcove that was heavily armored with an airtight door. The alcove could vary lighting without interfering wit the rest of the deck. The alcove was also doubly armored to prevent any weapons strikes from being more disastrous than usual.

Space is empty until it's not!

The alcoves wound up having a variety of unofficial uses. Many underperforming or insubordinate crewmen were assigned guard duty in an alcove as a light reprimand. Some crew chose to decorate the small areas and use them for meditation, meals or rest. On at least one occasion two crew used it for a more intimate purpose while the control deck was fully manned. A more practical use of the alcove was storing extra damage control supplies or snacks for those long shifts.

The crew of a Luna class do not have a lot of privacy (there are two single cabins in the entire ship.) Despite the busy atmosphere of the control deck the alcoves are often used by crew at designated hours to get s little alone time. The use of windows in operations is minimal. In a short video that went global a pilot was dropping ship to land while the navigator stood in an alcove looking outside and making hand gestures to tell the the pilot when to slow down. At one point the navigator even rolls down the window (not possible on a standard porthole to say the least), sticks his head out and drops a brick to determine exactly how far up they are, timing its fall. Th psychological benefit of the alcoves are indisputable.

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